What if one does not-or cannot-share the goals of one's parents? What happens to a young man when his own sense of self, however unformed as as-yet mysterious to him, is at odds with the identity his parents and peers assume of him?
— Martha Lavey, Steppenwolf
Theatre artistic director

Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa may have stumbled with his over- the-top dark comedy Say You Love Satan (recently produced in Chicago by About Face Theatre), but this Steppenwolf Theatre world premiere proves he can create solid stagecraft with a moral center. Strong without being sensational, the scandal at the heart of this drama (and its heart beats strongly indeed) isn't earth-shattering. Nor is the T.V.-movie plot particularly groundbreaking. What distinguishes Good Boys and True from similar modern moral melodramas is its willingness to show how class influences—and, often, deforms—character, how unearned privilege corrupts a personality as much as celebrity worship or overnight fame.

The setting is an exclusive Jesuit prep school in 1988. A smarmily revealing videotape is circulating through the campus. It supposedly depicts Brandon Hardy, a senior jock from a wealthy family, having heavy sex with a minor who's clearly unaware that she's being turned into amateur porn. Brandon, pampered scion of renowned physicians, must answer to his mother Elizabeth. She needs to know whether he's the boy in the tape and who the victim is. Meanwhile, Brandon's coach tries to contain the uproar.

Will this outrage hurt Brandon's admission to Dartmouth? Actually, that's the least of what's at stake in this Washington suburb. The bigger question: Does the fear of sexual exposure warp "good boys and true" into vicious users?

It's tempting to push the plot further, but the revelations here don't belong in print. It's enough to say that Aguirre-Sacasa has created an adolescent hotbed of repressed eroticism, class differences that fuel sexual manipulation, and a self- fulfilling family history of thuggishness in pursuit of power.
Yet, balancing these soul-shrinking forces is a kind of dogged decency.

Matching the play in its second-act strength, Pam MacKinnon's staging soars as it depicts Brandon's mother (a steely and galvanizing performance by Martha Lavey, Steppenwolf artistic director) meeting Cheryl (a heartbreaking Kelly O'Sullivan), the much wronged waitress in the videotape. This incandescent encounter reveals the aching humanity of women from different backgrounds trying to do the right thing, characteristically cleaning things up after men have done their easy worst.

The other performances pale before the unforced honesty of Lavey and O'Sullivan, though Tim Rock has strong speeches as Justin, Brandon's confused special friend, an unspoiled preppie who simply wants to prosper on his own merits. As Brandon, Stephen Louis Grush seems perplexed by the part; on opening night his final breakdown was less than convincing. Happily, the context cures this shortfall. Good Boys and True is strong enough to update —-and improve on— Tea and Sympathy. These two acts of compassion show us our worst to help us reach its opposite.